VMware exposes a fresh authentication loophole in its system
VMware has issued a security advisory, warning customers of a new critical vulnerability (CVE-2022-31656) that could potentially allow threat actors to bypass authentication in VMware Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager, and vRealize Automation. This vulnerability, similar to one disclosed in May, impacts the same products and has equal potential for severe damage.
The vulnerability, rated in the critical severity range with a 9.8 score on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System, was disclosed by NSFOCUS, an organization that has revealed a total of ten new vulnerabilities in the last third of 2022, including six critical and three moderate ones.
According to VMware, the most serious of the new vulnerabilities could be exploited by threat actors to trigger a remote code execution when paired with CVE-2022-31656. This could potentially enable an attacker with network access to the user interface on the VMware products to gain administrative access and bypass authentication.
Claire Tills, senior research engineer at Tenable, wrote that exploitation of this flaw opens up the possibility of attackers creating exploit chains. Tenable's blog post discusses the potential implications of exploiting the authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2022-31656).
VMware has issued patches for three impacted products. However, it is unclear whether these patches have been widely adopted. The company advises customers to deploy patches immediately and discourages relying on workarounds.
It's worth noting that VMware has not reported any exploitation of the vulnerabilities in the wild. The supplemental blog post from VMware provides additional information about the risks associated with the new vulnerabilities.
This critical vulnerability is a recurring problem for VMware customers, as evidenced by the previous vulnerability (CVE-2022-22972) that also earned a 9.8 critical severity score. In May, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even issued an emergency directive in response to the previous vulnerability.
VMware has warned customers using the impacted products that they could be at risk. The organization urges all users to stay vigilant and to promptly apply the patches provided.
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